They are taught to esteem graceful manners, elegance of deportment,
flashy humor, affability of character, and unlimited condescension as
being the elements of a finished education; and the precious days of
childhood with the more precious time of adolescence have been
entirely absorbed to acquire it.
This is the school that has given birth to what is called "_Arts
of Pleasure_," to which it sacrifices the knowledge of more
necessary things which instruct the mind, fortify the heart, and
invigorate the will. Our compassion and disgust are simultaneously
aroused, when we see so many women whose education has given them no
other knowledge than to teach them how to flatter the taste of others
at the expense of Christian modesty.
How many women there are who, from their youth, have renounced the
dignity and glorious privileges of their sex, calmly resigning
themselves to play the inferior and humiliating role that the
prejudices and passions of a frivolous society impose upon them!
It is our heart-felt desire that you may never experience anything
of the kind; suffer not the aureola with which God has decorated your
brow to be ruthlessly removed and trampled under foot.
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